CHAPTER 44: CHAPTER 44 — THE OTHERS

POV:Silas

Silas had learned one truth in the Tier 2 shroud:

If it feels wrong , then it is.

Tonight, Grim Hollow felt wrong, which was absurd to say because the whole place always felt wrong.

The outpost still buzzed with frantic soldiers running damage control after the sabotage. Officers barked orders. Warrant officers sealed storage sectors. Entire platoons had been mobilized for internal sweeps. It should have felt reassuring.

It didn’t.

Silas walked the length of Sentry Hall with one hand brushing the hilt of his longblade. His footsteps echoed against stone and steel—too loudly, as if the hall were hollowing out around him.

Something moved in the corner of his eye.

He turned sharply.

Nothing.

But Silas had survived the tier 2 shroud. He knew the difference between nothing and something pretending to be nothing.

A soft hiss whispered through the hall—metal scraping metal from the far end.

He froze.

Three months ago he would’ve dismissed it as a rat.

But in the shroud, rats had teeth like daggers and moved like shadows.

"Bessia should have reached the western gate by now," Silas muttered.

He rested his hand on the cold wall and exhaled. His senses weren’t enhanced like an Initiate’s, he was a high-fledgling close to a breakthrough, still a fledgling , but his instincts had been sharpened under pressure most soldiers would never experience.

He moved again—quiet, slow and methodical in his approach.

The lights flickered.

The hiss returned.

And this time, he caught a glimpse—

A figure slipping behind the corner, too fast for a normal human.

Silas didn’t hesitate.

He sprinted.

POV:Bessia

Bessia hated nights like this.

She pressed her back against the outer wall of Grim Hollow’s western gatehouse, her breath fogging in the frigid air.She studied the weapon she wielded knowing she wasn’t really sure of its intricate use. She could have gotten a standard issued gun with some of her merit points but in the long run guns would become obsolete, wielded only by the bottom rung of the army. She could not break her sword against a stone before battle, a battle which was her life and the rigid foundation she planned to build. Her bow was drawn, arrow nocked. Her fingers trembled—not from fear, but from cold.

She didn’t fear much anymore.

Not after what she saw in the Shroud.

She listened.

The world had sounds: the crackle of torches, the distant murmur of soldiers, the churn of generators, the stiff wind dragging across the stone.

But underneath her calm exterior ...

Bessia gritted her teeth.

The Umbral Covenant had been a rumor back in her town. A cult that worshiped something buried in the fog. A cult that believed death was mercy. Now it was a certainty that they crawled in the edges of grim hollow’s awareness.

She scanned the shadows between the supply crates stacked near the perimeter wall.

There.

Movement.

She didn’t fire yet, didn’t want to be put in the pen for killing an innocent worker. She stepped lightly, keeping to the stone until she found an angle.

Then she saw him.

A soldier. Uniform still on. But his posture was wrong—limp, puppet-like. Ink veins trailed up his neck.

He looked like a caricature of what a normal human was supposed to be, Controlled.

She whispered, "Light guide me."

Not a prayer. A habit.

She drew the string back to her cheek.

The controlled soldier twitched violently and snapped his head toward her, mouth opening too wide, eyes rolled back.

He lunged.

Bessia released.

The arrow struck his shoulder, spinning him back. She strode forward, knocking a second arrow, when—

Hands grabbed her from behind.

She slammed her elbow into ribs—felt bone give. Another grabbed her hair. She twisted, rolled, kicked off the wall, and her assailant’s grip loosened.

Two cultists.

But they were not controlled.

Voluntary.

"Who the hell applies for the post of cultist"she thought.

Their ink-smeared masks gleamed under torchlight.

"Return..." one whispered.

"No thanks," Bessia hissed, swinging her bow like a club.

The fight exploded.

POV: Adam

Adam was not brave by nature.

He wasn’t strong like Duncan or fast like link or unnervingly calm like Bright.

He was a thinker. A planner. A man who survived the Shroud by calculating everything with terrifying precision.

But right now, the situation had spiraled far beyond precision.

He crouched behind a broken transport cart in the inner courtyard, breathing hard. The courtyard was deserted—the soldiers here had been sent toward the grain tower, leaving this sector eerily quiet.

Too quiet.

Adam peeked over the cart.

At least nine symbols had been painted on the courtyard stones—ink eyes staring in all directions. They pulsed faintly, as if alive.

"Fucking obvious trap," he whispered.

He shouldn’t be alone. He should be with Bessia or Duncan, even that obnoxious Silas would be appreciated at this moment. But orders had pushed their team across different sectors for the internal sweep. He’d been stuck with a junior corporal who lasted all of fifteen minutes before disappearing into shadow.

Adam wasn’t foolish enough to chase him.

Instead, he analyzed.

The ink sigils seemed arranged in a pattern—some kind of triangulation.

Arcane?

Ritualistic?

Command-based?

He had seen similar in the shroud, though much cruder. Shroud-born creatures sometimes marked territories with instinctive patterns—primitive but symbolic. But this...

This was organized.

He took a step forward.

The eyes vibrated softly.

He stepped back.

The vibrations stopped.

"Linked to movement," he muttered.

He circled along the wall, staying outside the sigil pattern. He counted steps. Measured spacing. Watched for any distortions in the air.

Then he heard it.

Distant footfalls.

Running.

Adam crouched low.

A shadow sprinted into the courtyard—Silas.

But behind him—

Six cultists chasing like wolves.

Adam cursed and rose instantly. "Speak of the devil and he arrives."

POV: Duncan

Duncan slammed the cultist’s head into the floor.

Once.

Twice.

A third time for good measure.

The man slumped unconscious.

Duncan did not apologize.

He stood in Storage Hall Three, chest heaving, knuckles bleeding. Four more unconscious cultists littered the floor. He hated fighting humans—monsters were easier, cleaner—but traitors were worse than beasts.

Especially these traitors.

He wiped ink from his forearm and spat.

"All this because they worship a corpse in a fog."

A crash sounded deeper in the hall.

Duncan spun, raising his fists.

"Show yourself."

A figure stepped out from behind a crate stack.

Bessia.

She limped slightly, one eye bruised, but alive. Her soul talent working in overdrive to Keep her safe.

"You okay?" Duncan asked.

She nodded once. "You?"

He grunted. "Handled worse."

Then he paused, something shifting in her expression.

"... they’re everywhere."

"How many?"

"Too many. And they’re coordinated. We can’t even tell what they are planning to do, no order from the higher-ups too. The damn fanatics are not just hiding—they’re positioning."

Duncan frowned. "Positioning for what?"

But Bessia wasn’t looking at him. She was staring above him wondering how in gods name infiltrators had the time and leeway to compromise the outpost this way. Hollow was starting to like an apt name to describe how corrupt the outpost was.

Duncan turned slowly.

The rafters.

Ink.

Symbols carved into the wood—glowing faintly.

Duncan whispered, "Oh no."

Bessia whispered, "This place is a ritual chamber."

Then the lights blew out.

BACKTOSILAS

Silas skidded into the courtyard, boots scraping stone. He didn’t slow down—he couldn’t. Six cultists were on his heels, and these ones moved like nightmares—fast, twitchy, unpredictable.

Adam rose from behind the cart, eyes widening.

"Silas! SIGILS!"

Silas glanced down.

Ink eyes glowed under his feet.

"MOVE!" Adam yelled.

Silas dove forward.

The sigils detonated—not explosively, but with a psychic blast.

Pain like needles scraped the inside of his skull. He staggered. The cultists behind him stumbled too—some screaming, others laughing hysterically—but the pulse hurt Silas more.

He felt Adam grab his collar and yank him behind cover.

"You idiot!" Adam hissed. "Those are resonance traps!"

Silas spat blood. "Noted."

The cultists recovered quickly, stepping carefully around the sigils as if they knew the pattern.

Adam’s eyes widened. "They do know the pattern."

"That means—" Silas began.

"—this is a luring formation," Adam finished.

The cultists grinned in unison.

Silas grabbed Adam’s arm. "We need to regroup with other people Now."

Adam nodded.

But the cultists rushed them.

POV SHIFT — Bessia & Duncan

Darkness swallowed Storage Hall Three.

Duncan couldn’t see anything.

Bessia could barely see outlines.

But they both heard the whisper.

"Return to Him... return..."

It was like a mental attack that scratched at their brain.

Bessia fired blindly.

Duncan moved toward the nearest voice and slammed his fist into flesh. A scream answered.

Then another whisper came from behind them.

Then to their left.

Then everywhere.

"Duncan," Bessia whispered, "they’re not speaking."

"What?"

"They’re not speaking. Their lips aren’t moving."

Duncan froze.

The whispers continued.

Inside their heads.

POV SHIFT — Adam

Adam with all false bravado ducked under a cultist’s blade and rammed his shoulder into the attacker’s ribs. Silas followed up with a knee to the temple.

Two more cultists flanked them.

Adam shouted, "Silas, left—!"

Silas turned too slow.

One cultist slashed at Silas’ arm.

Adam grabbed Silas and dragged him back.

The courtyard was turning against them. Sigils pulsed. Shadows darted. The air thickened.

Adam clenched his jaw.

He wasn’t a frontline fighter, not really.

But Silas was more or less keeping them alive. If it wasn’t for his safety being tethered to Silas’ existence, he would have left the ambitious prick to die.

Still he wouldn’t let him die here.

Adam kicked a loose stone toward a sigil cluster.

The moment the stone hit the ink—

THRUM—

A pulse erupted.

The cultists staggered.

Silas lunged, taking advantage of the gap.

Adam shouted, "Follow the pulses! We can use the traps too!"

Silas grinned despite the blood on his face.

"Now that brain of yours is being put to good use."

POVSHIFT — Bessia

Bessia fired dozens of arrows into darkness.As an amateur she was, many never found flesh.

Duncan moved like a wrecking ball, grabbing cultists and throwing them into walls.

But the ink sigils above began to crawl—literally crawl—shifting into new patterns.

Bessia’s breath hitched.

"Hey!!, the symbols—they’re changing!"

A hiss filled the air.

Then a scream.

Not from a cultist.

From above.

Something dropped from the rafters.

A body.

A dead soldier covered from scalp to boot in ink sigils.

His eyes snapped open.

Bessia froze.

"No... no no no—"

Duncan raised his fist.

The corpse moved impossibly fast, grabbing Duncan’s wrist and twisting.

Duncan roared, dropping to one knee.

Bessia fired an arrow into the corpse’s head.

The corpse didn’t even flinch.

It turned toward her.

POVSHIFT — Silas&Adam

Two cultists remained.

Silas cracked one across the jaw.

Adam fired his gun into the second’s eyeball.

Adam hissed, "you’ve been hit."

Silas looked down. Blood soaked his sleeve.

"I’ve had worse."

Adam opened his mouth to argue—then stopped.

POV SHIFT — Duncan

Duncan slammed the corpse into a crate.

It didn’t care.

It grabbed him by the throat.

Duncan clawed at its arm, choking, boneguard activated .

Ink dripped from its mouth.

Bessia screamed his name and charged, jamming an arrow into the corpse’s eye.

It barely slowed.

Duncan saw stars.

Then the corpse jerked unnaturally and went limp.

Skirmishes were taking place all over the hollow, traitors amidst this forsaken hold killing the ones they once called brothers-in-arm.